The subject of this panel – conserved by the masterful Marco Grassi – is founded on two miraculous episodes narrated by the apocryphal Gospel of the Pseudo-Matthew. During the flight to Egypt, a palm tree is said to have bent to offer its fruit to the Virgin while a spring gushes forth at its roots (as seen also in a 1520 canvas by Correggio in the Uffizi Gallery). Saint Joseph and the Virgin stand at the center. The first holds the Christ Child, cosseted by two maidservants (one squeezes his bare leg), while Mary picks dates off the bent branch and a young man on the left manifests his surprise with his gesture and expression. On the right, crouched on the ground, are three animals, a lion, a wolf and a sleeping ram. Pseudo-Matthew recounts that fierce beasts adored the Christ Child when he passed through the desert, and assisting him by showing the way. The reference is to Isaiah 11:6 and 65:25), according to which “wolves will pasture with lambs, the lion and the ox will eat straw together.”
